


I Don't Like Mondays

by Annael150



Category: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7979977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annael150/pseuds/Annael150
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know what happened on that life-changing Saturday, but what happens when the Breakfast Club returns to school on Monday?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Like Mondays

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fanfiction, so be gentle! The Breakfast Club is my favorite movie, so i felt compelled to write this. It's told from the first person perspective of Brian, Allison, and Claire. There are new characters, but I did not add any characters to the original five from detention. Hope you enjoy!

 

BRIAN

 

            “So, what are you going to do today?”

            I hate when she asks me rhetorical questions. Does she know how condescending she sounds?

            “Brian Ralph Johnson, I asked you a question.”

            “I’m going to ask Mr. Schwartz if he can drop the F, Mother.”

            She nods and checks the review mirror. “That’s right. Gosh, Brian we raised you better than this. That detention is going to be on your permanent record. Yale is going to see it. And Harvard. And Princeton. Did you think about that?”

            Just let me out of the car.

            “I’m sorry mom.”

            She sighs. “I don’t want to hear another apology. Just do better. Be better. You are only hurting yourself. Now button up your coat, you don’t need to miss school because of a cold.”

            Finally.

            I unbuckle and open the car door as fast as possible. The cold air hits my face like tiny needles and I take a deep breath. I don’t think riding to school with your mom should feel like you’re being smothered by a pillow.

            “Love you!” she says right before I close the door. I pretend like I don’t hear her.

            I shuffle towards the front of the building, the northern concrete façade of Shermer High School. How is it that this miserable, piece of crap place is what determines how the rest of my life plays out? I guess High School is like New York: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

            I stop and stare at the block letters that spell out the school’s name. The messed up part about high school is that there is no real way to ‘make it.’ You just get through it and hope to God you make it out without a scratch.

            So far, I’m not doing such a hot job of it. And it’s only sophomore year for me.

            As I climb the stairs, I get the oh-so familiar feeling of dread in my stomach. It’s like a tiny dump truck is slowly filling my abdomen with hot tar, and by the time I reach the doors, my organs feel smooshed and oxygen deprived.

            Today is Monday, March 26th, 1984. Another day I get to spend in purgatory before I officially make it to hell.

            As I suspect, Connor O’Malley is waiting for me at my new locker. Together, I’m pretty sure we are the President and Vice President of nerds everywhere. On the first day of freshman year, we became friends by bonding over the Star Wars pencils we had. That pretty much cemented our brotherhood of Nerddom.

            When he sees me, his eyes widen. “So?”

            I make it to the second number of my combination before I remember they gave me a new lock, too. Turns out these locks are thief-proof, but not immune to flare gun explosions.

            Ha.

            “So what?”

            “How was Saturday detention?”

            “It was fine,” I say. I pull out my Trigonometry book. Did it have to weigh a ton?

            “C’mon dude, what happened? Was there anyone else there?” he pleaded.

            I look at him. For a second, I consider telling him everything that happened. The dancing, the weed, the emotional vomit that was spilled by the five of us that day. Then again, the whole story sounded bizarre when I went over it in my head, and I’m the one who lived through it. How would I even begin to describe the best and worst Saturday of my life? Connor’s my best friend, but I doubt he would understand it all. He wouldn’t.

            Somehow, I unlocked a part of myself to four strangers that I never dared show to Connor or any of our friends.

            “Yeah,” I finally say. “There were a few other people there. We just sat and did nothing all day.”

            Connor laughed. “You’re kind of badass now. The rest of us never got detention before.”

            By “the rest of us” he means the Nerd Squad.

            “I’m not badass, I’m stupid. I shouldn’t have gotten detention in the first place.” I close my locker and replace the lock. Oh God, I sound like my mother.

            “Yeah, I mean, what the hell were you doing with a flare gun?” Connor asked.

            Crap. How do I answer that?

            I shrug.

            Yeah, that was convincing.

            “Whatever. The important thing is, you survived. Do you wanna come over later and help with the model?” he asks.

            Connor and his dad have been working on a model of the Millennium Falcon for the past two years. Every time I go over, it still just looks like a pile of scraps, but they both claim that they are making real progress. I’m sure they’ll finish by the year 2000.

            “I can’t, I’m a delinquent now, remember? I’m under house arrest for, like, a month.” Gosh. My arm is going to fall off by the time we get to Trigonometry. We push our way to the staircase and begin our long trek to the fourth floor.

            I look around as we head up the stairs. If I’m being honest, part of me hopes I don’t see the others from detention. Sure, we bonded on Saturday, but now it’s Monday. They’ve had thirty-six hours to decide it all never happened. I’m pretty sure I’m off their radars now.

            “Man, that bites. But you’re still allowed to come to Physics Club, right?”

            “Yeah, I—“

            Crap, I walked into something. A wall? No, it was too soft to be a wall. It’s sad that I know that. I grab my textbook off the floor and look up.

            “Hi Brian.”

            I take a moment to appreciate the wall/girl I came to know less than two days ago. The black tights, the black skirt, the blue sweat jacket that seemed out of place on her body. She looked like her normal self, except for the missing charcoal around her eyes. I smile at her.

            “Hey Allison.”

 

 

ALLISON

 

            “How was the rest of your weekend?” I ask him.

            “It was the same as any. I studied, “ Brian says.

            I laugh a little. What did I really expect to hear? That he snorted lines of coke off a stripper’s ass? I look over at his friend, who looks like he’s about to jump out of his skin.

            Is he actually wearing suspenders? Nice.

            “Cool suspenders. Where’d you get them?” I ask the other guy.

            His eyes bug out so far, I’m almost certain they’ll pop out. “Uh, I, um, my mom. I mean, my mom got them. For me.”

            “Allison this is Connor. Connor this is Allison. We had detention together,” Brian says.

            His friend nods slowly. “It’s, um, nice to meet you Allison.” Although, he doesn’t seem too sure about that.

            “Same here,” I say and give him a pat on the head just to freak him out a little more.

            “So where are you headed to now?” Brian asks, gesturing to my bag. As if it’s actually filled with books. Does he know me at all?

            “English with Hadley. She’s a pain in the ass.”

            He laughs. “She is. We are on our way to Trigonometry.” He lifts his mammoth textbook so I can see the title. I can’t help but smile at how dwarfed it makes him look.

            “Good luck with that,” I say with a wave goodbye. I slide in between them and start walking down the rest of the flight.

            “Allison, wait!”

            I turn. “Yeah?”

            “Find us at lunch, if you want,” Brian says. He shrugs.

            I shrug back at him. “Okay.” I look over at Connor, expecting him to protest, but he says nothing. “See you then.”

            I turn and walk through the first floor doors before they see me smile again. Lunch with company. That’ll be new. I usually eat lunch in the third floor bathroom over the sink. It’s quiet up there. But I’ve decided that I like Brian, so to the lunchroom I go. I guess.

            I stick my hands in my pockets and walk closer to room 118, where Ms. Hadley awaits. Well, they are technically not my pockets. God, I haven’t worn anything colorful to school since fifth grade.

            I don’t know why I wore Andrew’s hoodie to school. It’s not even a nice blue, it’s an obnoxious blue that jocks wear. And it’s like a tent on me because I lack the muscles to fill it out.

            But it’s warm, and it smells like him.

            Jesus, I’m pathetic.

            I wasn’t planning on looking like a blueberry today, but before I left my room this morning I saw his stupid hoodie hanging from my closet door, and I started to think about Saturday, and the way he looked at me that day. No one has ever looked at me that way before.

            Plus, he kissed me. And I want to say that kiss was just nothing, that I can wave my hand and say “Oh yeah, that? Pffft, it was no big deal.” But I can’t, because a person’s first kiss is kind of a big deal

            Yeah. My very first kiss. Ever. It was a very nice kiss, too.

            Still, women’s rights have come too far for my brain to melt over some boy who probably won’t even acknowledge my existence. I really don’t know why I wore his hoodie, I should just toss it, gosh…

            Maybe I’ll keep it for one more day.

            When I reach the classroom, I plop into my unassigned assigned seat. The teachers, don’t tell us where to sit (we’re not fucking eight), but everyone has the brains to pick a seat on the first day and keep it for the rest of the year. I always choose the desk in the far right corner, where no one will look in my direction, breath in my direction, exist in my direction, et cetera, et cetera.

            “Okay, today we are going to finish chapter seven of Robinson Crusoe together, and then I’ll write a few questions on the board you have to answer and hand in tomorrow morning,” Hadley declares at the front of the room. She waddles over to her desk and carefully sits down on her chair. She’s five hundred months pregnant and refuses to go on leave until she has to. I swear, she’s going to give birth in this classroom. “Who wants to start us off?”

            All the over-eager kids in the front shoot their hands up, while I sink deeper into my seat. I take my copy out of my bag. It’s one of the only school required books I actually carry around because I’m actually enjoying it. It’s about this guy named, you guessed it, Robinson Crusoe, who gets marooned on a deserted island. At least, it’s pretty deserted until he rescues this slave named Friday from cannibals. I dunno, I just relate to the guy a little. Or I envy him. It must be cool to have a whole island to yourself. You can be king of nothing and king of everything. There are no rules to follow, and society isn’t breathing down your neck because, well, you are society itself. And I wouldn’t mind having a sidekick like Friday because he can’t talk.

            It would be so easy for me to get on a random boat and sail far away and never look back. I mean, what would I look back to?

            My parents wouldn’t even blink an eye.

            Assholes.

            I continue to feed my island fantasy for the rest of the morning, mainly because I didn’t want to think of Andrew, but also because I couldn’t give a shit about what any of my teachers were saying.

            Before I know it, it’s the moment of truth: Lunchtime. I walk down to the lunchroom, a place I haven’t been since freshman year. I stop for a second and watch as an endless stream of horny, emotional, and hungry teenagers go through the double doors. How many kids go to this school? Damn.

            Panic hits me as I realize that I might have reached the cafeteria before Brian and his friends. What if they’re not there? Do I wander around in there until they show up? What if the pricks ditch me? Gosh, I miss the bathroom.

            I roll my eyes at myself and blow my bangs out of my face. I can do this, there is no reason to be such a pussy about it. It’s just a room with a bunch of people. Although, it does feel like I’m walking into a lion’s den.

            I walk forward and push my way through and almost immediately spot Brian and Connor and two other nerdy looking guys sitting at a table right by the doors. Huh. Easy enough.

            “So, I’m assuming you have soup for lunch again,” I say as I claim the empty seat next to Brian.

            He laughs a little. “No actually, it’s, uh, a leftover turkey sandwich.” He tips it over so that I can see that it is indeed turkey.

            “Turkey in March?” I ask as I take out my lunch. I packed my usual thirteen pixie sticks and a can of Dr. Pepper. I crack one of the sticks open and dump the contents into my mouth.

            Brian shrugs. “Yeah. My dad is a fan of turkey. Oh hey, guys this is Allison,” he says to the two guys who are not Connor.

            “Allison, this is Blake,” he motions to the one with curly blonde hair who’s wearing a smiley face t-shirt. “And this is Larry Lester,” he motions to the ginger with glasses. “And Monty should be back soon, he went to get milk.”

            I wave my salutations, and they each give me uneasy smiles. I look over at Larry Lester again. He is kind of small and weak looking. But in an adorable way, like a stray kitten.

            I hope his rear end is okay. I shouldn’t ask, it’s probably a sore subject.

            Great, Larry’s ass is only bringing up thoughts about Andrew and how sick he looked when he described what he did to him…And yes, damnit, the friggin’ kiss.

            Connor speaks up first. “So what did you even do to get detention?” he asks me.

            “They found me cooking meth in the Chem lab,” I say before downing another pixie stick. I chase it with a swig of soda.

            “Oh come on,” Larry says. “I think they would have expelled you for that.”

            “Yeah, and they would have, but I nailed Vernon and he just couldn’t let me go,” I say with the best nonchalant shrug I can muster.

            Brian, however, bursts out laughing/ choking on his milk. I give him the side eye for giving away my ruse.

            “I sincerely hope you’re not serious,” Connor says.

            “Dude, of course she isn’t,” Blake says. “I really doubt threat of expulsion would be enough to get her to screw Vernon.”

            Now it’s my turn to laugh. I’m beginning to like this motley crew.

            “I don’t think there is enough money in the world,” Brian says.

            “For what?” asks an Indian looking guy who takes the seat across from Connor. I’m assuming he’s Monty since he has a fresh carton of milk.

            “To screw Vernon,” Blake responds.

            Monty narrows his eyes and takes a slow sip of milk. “Well…”

            A chorus of “Ew, dude!” and “What the fuck” erupts at the table.

            “I mean, I’m not saying I would do it for, like, a thousand dollars,” Monty explains. “But say, maybe upwards of twenty five million, yeah I’d suck his dick. I’d swallow too.”

            Everyone laughs, including me. These nerds are looking less nerdy by the second.

            Just then, a bunch of rowdy guys enter the lunchroom from the other set of doors across the room from us. They travel through the rows of tables, laughing and shoving each other until they settle on a table that’s not quite in the middle of the room, but where everyone can still get a good look at them. It takes me a second to realize that they are from the wrestling team, and a split second after that to spot Andrew right in the middle of them.

            I turn away quickly, my heart shamefully speeding up.

            Larry scoffs. “Oh look, the Asshole Convention is in town.” He takes an angry bite of his sandwich.  The others look at him mournfully.

            I exchange looks with Brian, and I can tell we are both thinking of Saturday.

            “Andy isn’t that bad once you get to know him…” Brian says carefully.

            Larry looks at him. “Oh yeah? Tell that to my butt cheeks Brian.” He wraps the rest of his sandwich up and tosses it back into his lunch bag. “I’m going to go see if they have those apple pies again. Does anyone else want one?” He leaves the table before anyone can respond.

            You know, I wouldn’t mind pie right now actually.

            Brian turns to me. “Are you going to go over there?”

            I frown at him. “Over where?”

            He nods over to Andrew’s table. “I just thought, you know…you guys had a moment…”

            “There was no moment, weirdo.”

            “Yeah there was. And I’m pretty sure he was wearing that hoodie on Saturday.”

            Fuck you, Brian. And fuck me for wearing it.

            “Just forget it, nerd wad.” I glare at him. He holds his hands up in surrender.

            “So Allison,” Monty says, leaning in toward me. “Are you a fan of Star Wars?”

            “What is that?” I ask

            All of their jaws dropped open. I must have broken some Cardinal Rule of the Nerds or something.

            Connor shook his head. “I am at a loss for words right now.”

            “Do you live under a rock?” Blake inquires.

            I narrow my eyes at him, ready to tell him where he can go with himself, but I am interrupted by someone who walks into my peripheral vision. I turn to them, thinking it is Larry returning to bestow warm apple pie unto us all. But it is not.

            I look over and there is the owner of the hoodie I’m wearing. Andrew Clark in the flesh. Looking right at me.

            I’m so sure my heart has stopped beating all together. I should say something, right? I should open my mouth and say something instead of staring like an invalid.

            “Hey Andy,” Brian says before me.

            “Hey Brian,” Andrew says, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. He looks a bit nervous, almost like he’s not sure why he’s here. I look over at the table he came from and see that some of his friends are looking over at us, probably wondering what Andrew is doing talking to a bunch of rejects.

            “We were just talking about you,” Brian says with a smile in my direction. I reach over and pinch his leg as hard as I can. “Ow.”

            Andrew smiles. “You were?”

            “No we weren’t, we were talking about Space Wars,” I say quickly.

            “STAR Wars,” Brian, Monty, Blake, and Connor correct me in unison.

            “And we were talking about you before that,” Blake adds. “Brian established that she is wearing your sweater, apparently.”

            I give Blake a look that hopefully says I Will Shove My Foot So Far Up Your Ass That Your Breath Will Smell Like My Shoes For A Week. He just smirks at me.

            “It looks better on you,” Andrew tells me and bites his lower lip.

            My face betrays me by breaking out into a big, dumb smile. We stay like that for a second, just staring at each other smiling. God, he’s like an infection. He’s like a cold. You know it’s there and you try to ignore it, but at the end of the day it takes over your entire body.

            “So, uh,” Andrew begins. “I don’t want to interrupt your discussion on fictional universes, but I was wondering if I can steal her,” he motions to me.

            “And take me where?” I ask.

            He nods toward the direction of his friends. “But only if you want,” he says.

            I look over at his friends then back at him. “You’re sure they’d be okay with that?” I ask.

            He shrugs. “They’ll live. Besides, it’s not really up to them.”

            I look over at Brian, not really sure if I want to leave my new friends for the vultures at Andrew’s table. Brian gives me a reassuring smile.

            “Go ahead,” he says with a nudge. I smile back at him.

            I stand up and Andrew takes my hand, guiding me to the center of the cafeteria. I focus on our intertwined fingers. His hands are slightly larger than mines, which somehow makes me feel safer. I don’t want to see the looks we may or may not be getting from other people. I let my eyes travel up his arm to his face. He stares ahead, with a bit of determination set in his jaw. I mean, it’s no big deal. I’m just going to sit with the guy I like and enjoy lunch. With his friends. Who will probably hate me. And then he will ignore me, and I’ll go back to eating lunch in the cozy third floor bathroom.

            Fuck. This.

            I get ready to bolt in the other direction, but it’s too late. We stop right at the head of the table. There are six guys who are just as muscular as Andrew, along with three cleavage-bearing girls sitting on the laps of their boyfriends. The entire table is littered with food, so much so that you can barely tell there is even a table underneath it all. My family eats less on Thanksgiving.

            “I’m back,” Andrew informs everyone. For a second I think that he expects me to sit on his lap too, which, haha over my dead body. Instead, he grabs a chair from an adjacent table and places it next to his vacant seat. We both take our seats as everyone follows us with their eyes.

            “Yeah, and you brought back a little friend,” the guy to my left says with a bemused look on his face. He’s black with a tamed afro, and I swear his bicep is bigger than my head.

            “Guys, this is Allison,” Andrew says. “She’ll be sitting with us from now on. Any of you asshats have a problem with that?” His voice is stern and hard.

            “Where’d he pick you up?” asks the guy to Andrew’s right, this one with a girl on his lap. She looks at me with slightly narrowed eyes, as if she’s contemplating whether to like me or not.

            I feel my defenses go up, but I resist the urge to say anything rude. “Detention,” I respond.

            The guy laughs. “You were with Clark in Saturday detention? God, that must have been hell,” he says. The girl on his lap seems to relax a bit.

            I shrug. “It wasn’t that bad.”

            The guy next to me scoffs. “Apparently,” he says, throwing an empty wrapper at Andrew. Everyone begins to laugh and “ooooooooooooh” in our direction.

            I feel my face begin to heat up. I look over at Andrew and see that his own face has turned a shade of pink, which only makes him look even cuter.

            “Shut up, man,” Andrew says, throwing the wrapper back to his assailant.

            Surprisingly, the conversation moves on pretty quickly after that. Wrestling dominates the discussion between the guys, while the three other girls at the table pick at their lunches and (pretend) to listen in. From what I could gather, there was going to be a meet against Alexander Graham Bell High School this Friday. I look back over to Brian’s table. Larry had returned at some point, and the five of them were engaged in what seemed like a heated debate. Probably about Star Wars. I can’t help but miss them a little.

            Just then, a piece of paper hits the side of my head and falls into my lap. What is up with these people and throwing things? I look up and see one of the girls smiling at me. I narrow my eyes at her and contemplate what to throw at her (a fucking anvil if I had one), but she pantomimes unfolding an imaginary piece of paper, inviting me to do the same. Ohhh, it’s a note. Never mind about the anvil.

            I pick it up and read as follows:

 

            _Hi! I’m Teresa! The guys didn’t really introduce themselves (wrestling makes them forget their manners). So I will! On your left is Manson, with the afro. Next to him is Clyde, then Jacob (he’s my boyfriend, that’s why im sitting on him). Then its Harry and Jenny on top of him, then Sammy and Nicole, and then Freddie. And you already know Andrew, wink wink. There are other guys on the team, but they hang out somewhere else. It’s nice to meet you Ally!_

 

            I look at her again when I’m done reading, and she waves at me. I smile back at her. I grab a pen from my bag and scrawl below her message:

 

            _Are they always this loud?_

I toss it back to Teresa and she catches it. She laughs when she reads my question. The girl next to her, Jenny I’m pretty sure, grabs the note and reads it. She looks over at me and rolls her eyes before flashing me a smile. Nicole grabs it next and laughs too. She takes Teresa’s pen and writes something before she tosses it back to me.

 

            _We are all half deaf, welcome to the club._

I stare at the note for a second before smiling back at all three girls. I look over at Andrew, then back over at Brian. Was it always this easy? Did I just have to get detention to assimilate myself into high school culture? Whatever the case may be, a large part of me wants to be optimistic about it all.  

 

**CLAIRE**

 

            “Who the fuck is that with Andrew Clark?!” Lilly squealed.

            Lilly, Miranda, Stevie, and I are still sitting at our lunch table even though class starts in a few minutes (who likes history enough to be early to class?). I look over at the jocks fast enough to catch Andrew give Allison a kiss on the cheek. Inwardly I rejoice. I noticed the way he kept stealing glances at her on Saturday, and they kind of fit together. In a weird way, at least. Lilly, however, does not share my opinion. She’s had a crush on Andrew Clark since November, although it never occurred to her to actually tell him that.

            “I don’t know,” I lie. “She was in detention with us though.”

            Lilly whips her head to look at me. “What? You didn’t tell me that before! Bitch!”

            I resist the urge to role my eyes. Lilly is the epitome of a drama queen. She deserves an Oscar every time she opens her mouth. I shrug at her. “I didn’t think it was important.”

            “Oh my gooooooosh,” she groans, plopping her head down on the table. “How could he do this to me?”

            “Do what to you?” Miranda asks. She takes out her compact to touch up her lip gloss. “He was never your boyfriend, so he’s free to fuck who he wants. Should’ve been faster.”

 Ah, Miranda. She often says what everyone else is too nice to say.

Lilly glares up at her. “Shut up! You don’t understand at all. I gave him precious months of my life. Now what? He suddenly wants to be with that…that…BIMBO?”

I stifle my giggles behind my hand. Allison is far from being a bimbo, but I can’t say the same for Lilly. Guaranteed, she will be pining for some football player by the end of next week.

Stevie reaches across the table and strokes Lilly’s hair. “I’m sorry, Lil. You don’t need him anyway,” she says consolingly. Lilly groans mournfully in reply.

I sneak a glance at Andrew and Allison again. He drapes his arm around her shoulders and both her hands reach up to grab his. Suddenly, Allison looks in my direction and our eyes meet. She gives me a small, one fingered wave. I grin at her briefly then turn away. I check to see if any of my friends saw the exchange, but they are all still coaxing Lilly from the edge.

I immediately feel ashamed. I’m not going to lie, Saturday was kind of amazing. I felt sort of free around the four of them, in a way I never feel with my friends. Part of me doesn’t want to let that go, but that’s the idealistic part of me. Life doesn’t work that way.

Well, unless you’re Andrew and Allison apparently. If they can make it work, then maybe….

I scan the emptying lunch room. No, he wouldn’t eat in here. He probably thinks he’s too cool to sit in a lunchroom. I sigh softly, something I find myself doing when I think of John Bender. I don’t know if it’s from exasperation or because I want to see him again.

I do want to see him again, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t. I’ve been scanning the hallways all morning, but he’s nowhere. It’s better that way, honestly. What would I even do if I saw him? Run into his arms? Let him kiss me again?

It was hard convincing my dad that he wasn’t important (it’s best not to make out with someone in front of your parents), but he finally dropped the subject yesterday. That’s what I need to do, just drop everything that happened on Saturday out of my head. That was a dream, and now I’m awake and things are back to normal.

“Claire Standish, are you fucking deaf or something?”

I jump a little, returning to the present. “What?”

Miranda rolls her eyes at me. “I asked you if you were going to Spirit Club today.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say quickly. Spirit Club is short for the Committee on School Spirit and Activities Club. It is made up of us, the entire cheerleading squad, and three teachers. We meet every Monday and Thursday to discuss ways we can keep up the morale during the school year. We plan our whole year around our big event, the Shermer Spirit Celebration which happens every May. It’s been a tradition for, like, ten years now, and even the most anti-social members of the student body attend. All four of us have been on the committee for three consecutive years. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Good, because we are coming down to the wire. We still need a DJ, a few more food vendors, and don’t even get me started on the Spirit Crown,” Miranda says. She puts her compact back into her bag and gets up. “We are so behind, it’s unreal. No one wants to cooperate, it’s going to be a disaster.”

I get up and sling my bag onto my shoulder. “It’ll be fine, it always is.”

“If those cheerbitches would stop complaining about everything, things would get done quicker,” Stevie says. “Come on, Lilly, we have to go.”

“Are they gone?” she asks from underneath her arm fort.

I look around. The wrestlers have indeed vacated the lunchroom. In fact, we are the only ones in here.

“Yeah, they’re gone Lil,” I reassure her.

“Now get your ass up, I’m not trying to get Saturday detention too,” Miranda says, already making her way to the door.

I sigh again. At this point, it’s pretty much involuntary when I think of the word Saturday.

I’ll get over it eventually.

                                                            ***

 

“I swear, I’m going to kick that girl’s ass one day,” Miranda fumes. It just wouldn’t be a successful Spirit Club meeting without Miranda wanting to harm one of the cheerleaders. This time she’s talking about Chrissy Mayweather, the captain.

“Oh come on,” I say. “A live band may not be that bad.”

She turns on me. “Oh really? We need music for six whole hours. Six hours! Do you really think a band will stand around for six hours? No. They will take breaks and there will be awkward moments where there will be NO MUSIC PLAYING. Even if we did get a band, it sure as hell shouldn’t be her brother’s run down wannabe Beatles cover band,” she says. She angrily digs for her car keys in her bag.

“Wait, I have to get my Chem book from my locker. I’ll meet you guys outside,” I say.

“Hurry up, I wanna get out of this hell whole full of idiots and stuff myself with pizza,” Lilly says, still bitter from lunch.

I rush up to the second floor, the hallway completely empty. I open my locker and search for my textbook. Where the hell is it? I know I have it…

Aaaand it’s in my room. Great, I just wasted a whole bunch of time and energy. I slam my locker shut and try to put the lock back on, but I drop it.

“Shit,” I mutter to myself.

“You need help, princess?”

I jump about ten feet in the air. I might have squealed a little too. I spin around and see the one person I was not expecting to see.

He leans against the lockers behind him, his arms crossed. He regards me with an amused smirk on his face as if he’s ready to laugh at my little outburst.

I look at him and I feel something begin to stir in my chest. “What are you doing here so late?” I ask him breathily.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” John Bender says. “I would think you would head home as quickly as possible to polish your tiaras.”

I roll my eyes at him. “I don’t own a single tiara. And I was at Spirit Club for your information.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” He nods. “I should have known you would be with those glitter-snorting preppies.” He takes a few long strides until he’s right in front of me. He places a hand on my locker and leans in dangerously close.

I drink in every line on his face, savoring this rare moment. His eyes, his nose, his surprisingly soft lips. Have his eyelashes always been this long? He leans in even closer and I feel his breath on my cheek. I notice something on his left ear and smile.

“Nice earring. Where’d you get it?” I ask him coyly.

“Oh, this ol’ thing?” He tucks his hair behind his ear so that I can see it better. “Some chick gave it to me the other day. She’s crazy about me.”

“She’s not that crazy about you,” I whisper. He leans closer and I close my eyes, waiting for him to kiss me.

A few seconds pass, and I open my eyes again. “What’re you waiting for?”

He looks down at me with the same stupid, intoxicating grin. “What do you mean?”

“You were going to kiss me, weren’t you?”

“I never said that,” he says. He takes a playful step back. “I wouldn’t dare kiss a girl who doesn’t absolutely go bonkers at the thought of me.”

“You’re such an asshole,” I tell him. Tired of waiting and playing games, I step forward and wrap my arms around his neck. I lean my entire body onto his and kiss him.

He kisses me back, and I can feel a warmth spread through me from the tip of my head down to my toes. His hand slowly traces the side of my torso back and forth. Goddamn.  

“Bender, get your ass back in here!” a voice shouts.

For the second time in five minutes, I jump, our lips making a suction noise as they pull apart. Mr. Schwartz, the shop teacher, stands in one of the classroom doorways frowning at us.

John runs his hand through his hair. “Coming dearest!” he sing songs to Mr. Schwartz. He looks down at me and smiles. “Duty calls, princess.”

I watch him disappear into the classroom, and the door shuts with a thud that echoes through the hallway. I stand there for a second, not really believing that just happened. I put the lock back on my locker and float all the way to the parking lot. I quickly get into the passenger seat of Miranda’s car.

“Fucking finally. What took you so long?” she asks. “And why are you smiling?”

Crap, am I? I purse my lips together in an effort to stop. “Sorry I took long. Let’s go.”

Stevie pokes her head in between the front seats. “Why are you all flushed?”

I turn away from her to grab my seatbelt. “I’m not flushed, let’s just go.”

Miranda eyes me for a second before putting the car into drive and pulling out of the lot. Her desire for pizza overtakes any curiosity she has about me.

If John Bender is a dream, I don’t think I want to wake up.  

   

  

           

             


End file.
